As a side note, society is so terrified to talk about age of consent but it might be time to revisit the laws. It seems like most of the people down in Alabama are ok with the age saying things like "its not that big of a deal" and "creepy but not forcible". They need to revisit their laws and let them match what the people feel is reasonable.

Then, you have the media suggesting that he should drop out even if the 14yo allegations are false because he admitted to dating a 16 year old. The problem is, that is legal in alabama and most states. I think most people feel like a 16 year old is too young but if thats the case, they should revisit the law.

At the same time, you have 17 year olds being put away and registered as sex offenders for sleeping with their 14 year old classmates. Common sense reform is needed for situations like that where most people would agree its ok especially when you are fighting against Biology. Then you have the inevitable dilemma where all children magically gains the ability to consent on a certain birthday. Its not really logical.

In general, I feel like every arbitrary law like this should have an automatic refferendum every once in a while. That includes the age to drink.

11/10/2017 5:35:25 PM

Quote :

"This from the party that wants to protect your children from the evil transgenders"

That is EXACTLY what I thought.

^I 100% agree with you on common sense reform. The laws are not up-to-date and in some cases based solely on repressive, puritanical ideas rather than being in the true interest of people's protection.

[Edited on November 10, 2017 at 6:02 PM. Reason : a]

11/10/2017 6:01:12 PM

Even If it was legal, it’s afill creepy and degenerate for a 30 something to pursue a 14 yo or 16 yo.

I bet there are more skeletons there too.

11/10/2017 11:51:22 PM

Republicans should have nominated Romney

11/11/2017 11:48:05 AM

Easy for you to say considering Romney is more similar to Hillary. The voters didn't want Romney and they don't want strange.

11/11/2017 12:18:14 PM

Yeah I'm a total Hillary shill, you got me pegged

11/11/2017 12:37:28 PM

No, but you wanted Hillary a lot more than Trump.

11/11/2017 12:39:08 PM

Well I guess it's true that as a non-moron I strongly preferred almost any other candidate over trump

11/11/2017 12:41:37 PM

I bet Romney would win in 2020

Can’t think of any democrat that would beat him now

Maybe Cory Booker (not advocating just thinking he’d do well)

11/11/2017 4:30:35 PM

Depending on what happens with this Russia investigation (looking more and more like it is also going to touch Democrats in addition to Republicans based on the latest reporting on Podestas) we all could be wrong and see either an independent rise up or some fringe extremist candidates on both sides.

[Edited on November 11, 2017 at 7:10 PM. Reason : A]

11/11/2017 7:10:28 PM

Quote :

"Alone with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. "

How does that happen in 1979? How would you leave your teen daughter with a strange male? "Her phone number"? There were no cell phones then, which means he got her home number.

Where was the mother when he called so many times? How come the daughter always answered? Or did the mother answer sometimes and give the phone to the daughter? Did families in 1979 allow their 14 year old daughters to go out alone beyond just the front lawn or the corner store?

He is/was a monster and should be punished for, IF the allegations are true. But seriously parents, do your job.

11/11/2017 8:09:18 PM

He wasn't a "strange male". He was a state prosecutor who the mother thought she could trust while at a child custody hearing. This makes it sound like it was a single mother who was battling for child custody which means she is more likely to leave the 14 year old alone while working. He would've been able to figure all of this out. Not having cell phones, made it much more difficult to control where your children went and with whom. Only a maniac parent would restrict their child to the yard.

11/11/2017 8:14:41 PM

https://www.facebook.com/MicMedia/videos/1708280202528096/

Wow.

11/11/2017 10:25:05 PM

^^^

Hahaha I took off for miles and went to friends’ houses, the pool, etc on my ATV when I was 14. Hell, some kids were driving and picking up stuff from the grocery store, etc at 14 where I grew up, haha.

(also, we had guns.)

11/11/2017 10:37:24 PM

To be fair, you were also male. In general boys get way more freedom than girls do, because of creeps like him.

11/12/2017 2:56:23 PM

So its starting to come out that this woman has been telling the story since 2009 and it was known by a lot of people. The only thing that changed is that with the election approaching, the WAPO approached the woman and asked her about it so they could turn it into a hit piece right before the election. They also waited until a day after the deadline for replacing candidates. This new information changes everything and now I can see why republicans are essentially disregarding it.

If these people were actually concerned about the crime, they would have reported it ealier, and if the WAPO was concerned, they would have published ahead of the deadline so he could be replaced. Its pretty obvious that they have strategically timed this whole thing to try and get a democrat senator who doesn't represent the desires of the people of alabama. They are trying to use the allegations as a tool to circumvent democracy and it puts the voters in an awkward position.

Politics is a dirty game.

[Edited on November 12, 2017 at 3:32 PM. Reason : the same bezos amazon washington post]

11/12/2017 3:30:46 PM

The GOP, perpetually trying to play the victim, won't even take responsibility for vetting its own candidates anymore. Instead WAPO, 800 miles away, is expected to produce its worst before candidate deadlines. You said yourself this lady had been talking about this for years, several articles have interviewed folks that admitted "well ol' Roy always liked em young." But no one in the party thought to raise it as an issue??? Probably because they were too busy screaming "God hates fags!!!'


No matter how insidious WAPO was in bringing this story to a national audience, it's still is nowhere near as damning as electing a pedo to the Senate. I get that you're trolling, but I'm taking bets with friends on whether some shitty house investigative committee decides to investigate this for 2 years.

[Edited on November 12, 2017 at 4:22 PM. Reason : Excusing pedos for a tax cut is the definition of sociopathy.]

11/12/2017 4:19:08 PM

^^hot take railing against the people reporting on pedophilia coming from a guy who said this...

"Its not the number of things I know that makes me so enlightened. Its my approach. I was wrong then and could be wrong now, but my open-minded approach is far superior to most on here. My ability to suspend bias allows me to evaluate situations based on observations and facts and also liberates me from having to adopt a set of beliefs from any party or organization.

I recognize that this is frustrating to people with fixed-mindsets. If you're using labels to simplify things and you put me in a box one day only to come back the next, and realize I belong in another box."

11/12/2017 4:20:43 PM

Right, I had to suspend a lot of biases to be arrive at that perspective

-I disagree with pedophilia
-I disagree with Moore's politics
-I don't like Bannon
-I disagree with the people of Alabama
-I have a lot of respect for Moore's opponent, Doug Jones
-I like Bezos

Despite all of that, I am still able to comprehend disdain for the WAPO's methods and backlash towards these allegations. With that long list of biases, most people would automatically conclude that this situation is black and white right vs wrong.

11/12/2017 5:31:12 PM

So you’re upset that wapo backed the right into a corner with common knowledge ...how devious of them

11/12/2017 5:42:12 PM

Yes because "backing the right into a corner" is not the job of journalists and WAPO has become a political hit squad instead of a newspaper. They have a responsibility to report stories as soon as possible and not wait until the impact of the story can be maximized. This then gives people like Trump the power to question the credibility of the press and use blanket statements to label them all this way. Its all connected.

If we root out fake journalism from the start, then Trump supporters won't have any evidence to use in support of his attack on the press.

11/12/2017 6:22:49 PM

What in the actual fuck? This is the exact purpose of journalism. You are so odd.

[Edited on November 12, 2017 at 8:03 PM. Reason : Is there any evidence this was held like the WikiLeaks stuff was?]

11/12/2017 8:01:42 PM

Actually they have a responsibility to report stories after they’ve been properly vetted and corroborated, not as soon as possible. Doing the latter leads to more problems.

You are saying this was basically common knowledge to most people, so the Republican Party has an even greater responsibility to bring this forward when they knew about it. Can I assume that if I look through this thread I’ll find that you called them out before you called out WAPO? The order in which you do things is indicative of what you feel is most important

Also acting like the reason republicans are brushing this off is because of the timing is fucking rich. If I list off every time a republican candidate or official was found to have done something heinous and the rest of the party just shrugged you think you’ll be able to find a legitimate reason for writing each one off? This is just who the Republican Party is, at least a good many of them.

And fake journalism? Come on man, the fact that you’re using the term the way trump wants you to is telling. Can you please, just for the sake of proving you’re not a total pawn, explain what actual fake news/ journalism is and why this is NOT?

[Edited on November 12, 2017 at 8:05 PM. Reason : S]

[Edited on November 12, 2017 at 8:07 PM. Reason : Ah]

[Edited on November 12, 2017 at 8:07 PM. Reason : Geez]

11/12/2017 8:04:55 PM

Quote :

"Actually they have a responsibility to report stories after they’ve been properly vetted and corroborated, not as soon as possible. Doing the latter leads to more problems."

That wasn't my point. My point was that they still waited to release it at precisely the time that would be most inconvenient for voters.

Quote :

"You are saying this was basically common knowledge to most people, so the Republican Party has an even greater responsibility to bring this forward when they knew about it."

No, I am saying that it wasn't common knowledge and the people who knew about it held it in their back pocket until it could benefit them. Think about the Trump bus tape. It wasn't common knowledge but the tape existed for years and was held in archives until an opportune time. This is how corporate media functions. They have tons of possible stories but only release the ones that will generate the most revenue. There is no integrity in anything they do. Just money or political agenda.

Quote :

"Can I assume that if I look through this thread I’ll find that you called them out before you called out WAPO? The order in which you do things is indicative of what you feel is most important"

No. I changed my position after more information came in. Standing by my original position regardless of new information would be stubborn. Before today, I assumed this woman came forward on her own and that would've been completely different.

Quote :

"Also acting like the reason republicans are brushing this off is because of the timing is fucking rich. If I list off every time a republican candidate or official was found to have done something heinous and the rest of the party just shrugged you think you’ll be able to find a legitimate reason for writing each one off?"

They are probably all because they don't want to harm the party over some strategic media attack even if the allegations are true. Do you really think the republican just want to put pedophiles in the senate? If WAPO did this story several months ago, they would've ran someone else for sure. Its too late to vet candidates now. They literally can't take his name off the ballot.

Quote :

"Can you please, just for the sake of proving you’re not a total pawn, explain what actual fake news/ journalism is and why this is NOT?"

The fake in fake news is not referring to the information being presented, but the context and agenda behind it. Journalism is supposed to be unbiased and you would never know the political affiliation of a "real" journalist. I guess the technical term for fake news would be "opinion jounralism" but when its not presented as such, it becomes a problem. Opinion journalism masquerading as reporting.

Quote :

"the fact that you’re using the term the way trump wants you to is telling."

Its telling of Trump's strategic genius. Fake news existed well before he coined the term, and he knew the political environment in this country was primed for someone to come along and use it as an excuse to circumvent the media entirely. He has exploited this weakness to perfection. media who cried wolf

[Edited on November 12, 2017 at 10:26 PM. Reason : trump is the actual wolf]

11/12/2017 10:21:25 PM

Quote :

"My point was that they still waited to release it at precisely the time that would be most inconvenient for voters"

Do you know that for sure or are you speculating? What we know right now is that they're the only ones to break news about a candidate for senate being a pedophile and your focus is nitpicking on when they chose to release the info.

Quote :

"No, I am saying that it wasn't common knowledge and the people who knew about it held it in their back pocket"

You may not be saying it, but reports coming out are saying that it was. And whether or not it was THAT common, the republican party should have and probably did know about it. Not saying anything was a gamble they were willing to take

Quote :

"Do you really think the republican just want to put pedophiles in the senate?"

What I think is that there are a fuck ton of cases where republicans have been caught doing awful shit and the party as a whole shrugged. See: Donald Trump

And now of course on to the best part of your post on fake news. You're so confident of how god damn smart you are you didn't even bother to actually double check yourself on Google first. Tell me, how did you learn of what fake news was.

Oh and as the sole poster on this board who thinks everyone else has been tricked by Trump it's laughable that you using Trump's version of the term is proof of his genius. From what I can tell, you're the only one who fell for it.

[Edited on November 13, 2017 at 10:21 AM. Reason : asdf]

11/13/2017 10:20:48 AM

Quote :

"Do you know that for sure or are you speculating? What we know right now is that they're the only ones to break news about a candidate for senate being a pedophile and your focus is nitpicking on when they chose to release the info."

Yeah because of their reasoning. They dug up an event from 40 years ago not for the purpose of informing voters but for the purpose of influencing the election. Isn't this the sort of thing you are mad at russia about?

Quote :

"You may not be saying it, but reports coming out are saying that it was. And whether or not it was THAT common, the republican party should have and probably did know about it. Not saying anything was a gamble they were willing to take"

What was common knowledge? That he was a pedophile or that he liked teen girls. Going on dates with 16,17,18 years would have been fine.

Quote :

"What I think is that there are a fuck ton of cases where republicans have been caught doing awful shit and the party as a whole shrugged. See: Donald Trump"

thats because they got the information too late (because the media held on to it) to do anything other than shrug or elect hillary.

Quote :

"Tell me, how did you learn of what fake news was."

The way the victims of katrina were portrayed woke me up. Foxnews was the first network that stood out to me and between 2008-2012 i started to open my eyes to be critical of all media outlets and their bias. Traveling the world made me realize how biased our news is in the US and that stories are handpicked to craft our beliefs.

Every story is calculated and stories are grouped to get a specific reaction. They have psychologist divisions at every media outlet.

The election of 2012 was my first in a 3rd party and allowed me to witness the onslaught of stories made to suppress the resistance. The media is a tool.

Sure, Trump coined the term "fake news" but I adopted belief in the concept long before.

11/13/2017 12:30:28 PM

earl'd

11/13/2017 12:32:09 PM

Did Earl quote bomb objections when Clinton and Podesta emails were reported on for months in the lead up to the elections? Did he call out WikiLeaks for sitting on them?

11/13/2017 12:36:05 PM

You ignored half of what I posted and picked out what you wanted so I'm going to do the same.

The whole world has known Trump is an awful human being for far longer than the previous election cycle. His appearances on Stern were public and only slightly better than the tape.

I'll go ahead and spell it out for you. Fake news is FAKE news. Entirely made up, non factual news. Biased news is not fake news. There are only two people who actually call biased news fake, can you guess who they are?

11/13/2017 12:42:25 PM

Quote :

"Roy Moore had been banned from a mall in Gadsden, Alabama, because he badgered teen girls, residents of the town, including lawyers and cops, say"

https://t.co/2PiK8XzRT8

11/13/2017 6:38:39 PM

new shit is out now. it got real today. the new allegations are much worse and the moore family has come out saying they have evidence that accusers were paid to come forward. Lol People down there are saying things like "We've all been young and did something wrong and we all deserve a second chance". Maybe they will release all non-violent prisoners next.

Quote :

" Did he call out WikiLeaks for sitting on them?"

Yeah. I was talking about this during the primary and knew people were holding on to all the shit on clinton to release it after bernie was out. That was part of my rally to try and get hillary people to support bernie. I saw it coming. Wikileaks is not masquerading as a news organization.

Quote :

" You ignored half of what I posted and picked out what you wanted so I'm going to do the same."

I quoted each part of your post individually and only skipped the personal attacks because that kind of stuff is beneath me.

Quote :

"There are only two people who actually call biased news fake, can you guess who they are?"

One is a lot more dangerous. When you have an entire society that is controlled by propaganda, you no longer live in a free society. People are in a state where they believe what the tv tells them and theres about 3 or 4 slightly nuanced options for the set of beliefs every american holds. All formed by corperate media and television.

11/13/2017 7:37:54 PM

We’re arguing on a college message board, this isn’t about whether or not you’re as powerful as the president. The argument is about whether you know what fake news actually means vs what the president says it means. You’ve made it quite clear you had no clue what it actually was. Congratulations on being the only one on this board that was actually fooled by what he did with the term

11/13/2017 8:27:07 PM

You misunderstood. I'm saying that I don't really care about fake news because its easy to beat. The biased news does the same thing with real information making it much more dangerous. If you're going to take things completely out of context and cherry pick examples and stories to craft your viewers, you can accomplish the same thing as just telling them something false. Its simply a more sophisticated way of communicating "fake news"

Trump is taking advantage of this reality to say we can't trust anything the media says and we have to go through him directly. Trump is a symptom of biased news. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if we are using the term fake news to talk about false stories or the internet or using it to talk about biased news. Thats semantics (which ironically happens to be a tool used by the media the way you are using it now) To me, the term is all-encompassing. What matters is the concept. Just because I use the term in a different way, doesn't mean I had no idea about what you were referencing.

[Edited on November 13, 2017 at 8:37 PM. Reason : keep em honest]

11/13/2017 8:35:08 PM

Here’s an article from a dictionary explaining why your definition is wrong

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-real-story-of-fake-news

Thought I guess I understand why someone who thinks Trump is a genius would have a tendency to make up their own definitions of words and think others aren’t as “enlightened”

11/13/2017 9:04:34 PM

I'm using a different definition of news as well. In my idealistic view, news cannot be intentionally biased. Therefore, anything that is delivered in a slanted way and appears to be news is "fake news".

For example, a network can consistently air true stories of crimes by a certain type of person against a certain type of person every night to nudge their audience towards a conclusion that is statistically false. None of the stories are fake, but I would still consider that network "fake news". Its a much more nuanced way of looking at it.

11/13/2017 9:16:54 PM

The world does not work under your idealistic view. Making up your own definition does not make you smart. Adding nuance to a term that didn’t need nuance to begin with doesn’t make you smart. There was a specific reason Trump hijacked the meaning of that term and it was to change the subject of why people were paying attention to it. How does what you’re talking about do any differently than that?

Or maybe this whole stupid rabbit hole is just your attempt at diversion like your idol. You see yourself as some sort of student of his ridiculous tactics that only you find to be genius. Except that we all still remember the reason we started this conversation was because when a candidate was found to most likely be a pedophile one of your first reactions was to question the motivations of the organization behind the story.

11/13/2017 10:16:23 PM

We can pay attention to russian fakenews ads (even though i never gave a shit) AND talk about slanted media at the same time. The thread titled "the liberal media" has been around since 2008.

Quote :

"one of your first reactions was to question the motivations of the organization behind the story."

first i talked about republicans defending their politics at all cost
then i talked about revisiting age of consent laws

so by "one of my first" you mean my third reaction 3 days later

11/13/2017 10:35:39 PM

Quote :

"Its pretty obvious that they have strategically timed this whole thing to try and get a democrat senator who doesn't represent the desires of the people of alabama. "

Probably so; I've never thought the timing was coincidental.

That also doesn't make any difference. There's only one thing to do here, never mind that he never should have been considered for any elected position under any circumstances to begin with.

11/14/2017 5:51:29 AM

Do you think genius diversionary Donald Trump was successful in changing the subject of fake news away from the real definition or did he fail?

11/14/2017 9:22:29 AM

They are going to get to the bottom of this! THERE IS NO PEPE SILVIA

(this was an actual exhibit shown at the Session hearings today)

[Edited on November 14, 2017 at 4:43 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2017 4:43:02 PM

Illuminati Confirmed

11/14/2017 5:06:01 PM

Check out "Obama" in the lower right hand corner of that relationship map. It's connected to "James Clapper," "Obama State Department," and ......... "Obama."

Ground-breaking stuff right there.

11/14/2017 7:42:53 PM

11/14/2017 10:21:15 PM

NAILED IT

the ARRESTED box is my favorite

[Edited on November 14, 2017 at 10:28 PM. Reason : followed by TARMAC MEETING]

11/14/2017 10:28:02 PM

My four year old could build a better visio diagram.

11/14/2017 10:45:19 PM

Its funny because the pro hillary and anti hillary people are both off on tangents right now and both happen to connect the other side to russia but neither is actually putting any effort into moving forward

11/14/2017 10:50:23 PM

^ http://bfy.tw/F2wh

11/15/2017 8:40:13 AM

11/15/2017 10:41:21 AM

Quote :

"Probably so; I've never thought the timing was coincidental."

I would guess the timing has a lot more to do with Moore's September 26th primary win--and his subsequent promotion from Alabama sideshow to someone of national significance--than nefarious plotting by the Post. There was only a little over a month between the primary and the Post's first reporting.

11/15/2017 11:08:40 AM

trump was prominent for decades amd they hit him at ecactly the same time in the race

11/15/2017 11:42:41 AM